The Couple Who Died Cuddling In Bed In ‘Titanic’ Is Based On A Real-Life Husband And Wife

Caralynn is a writer, native New Yorker, TV enthusiast, and dog mom to Hobbes.

Like many natural and manmade disasters, the sinking of the RMS Titanic remains a particular fascination of many people today.

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Over 1,500 of the passengers and crew aboard the massive passenger liner died when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, after colliding with an iceberg on April 15, 1912. The tragic event occurred during the ship’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City — a much-hyped journey, given that the Titanic was, at that time, the largest ship afloat.

The massive death toll made the sinking one of the deadliest maritime disasters (unrelated to wartime activity) in modern history.

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The sinking was memorialized in the 1997 classic, Titanic, which broke box office records and earned a place in pop culture history. To this day, this movie is one of my own all-time favorites, and I’m sure many others can say the same!

I’ve practically memorized the entire (extremely long) film. One of the saddest moments that has always stuck with me is the death scene of two elderly passengers, a couple. But did you know that the onscreen pair was actually based on a real couple?

Scroll through to learn more about the real-life people behind this heartbreaking Titanic moment and their tragic true story.

“J. Dawson” is buried in the Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia — but he’s not the one Leonardo DiCaprio’s heartthrob, Jack, was based. The whole situation is actually just a complete coincidence.

It’s a bit of a bummer that the central love story isn’t real, but another relationship in the movie is very much based in reality: the one between the old people who died while cuddling in bed.

As the story goes, after the Titanic hit an iceberg, and it eventually became clear that the ship would sink, Ida (as both a first-class passenger and a woman) was immediately given a priority spot on a lifeboat.